WOOL TRACEABILITY FROM FARM TO SHOP

More and more consumers want to know where their products come from. For wool products, it is no different. Brands and retailers, however, come to learn quickly how complex and long the wool supply chain actually is which makes tracing a product from farm to shop a real challenge. At Fuhrmann we offer you full wool traceability along the entire supply chain.

Wool’s journey

The conventional wool supply chain

In a conventional wool supply chain, wool will change hands and ownership many times. The wool grower hands the wool to the broker who gets the wool ready for sale. Once the wool gets sold to the merchant he will export the wool from a grower country to a wool processing country in Europe, India, China, Malaysia or other destinations. At this point, the wool is either washed and combed on behalf of the merchant or sold directly to the scourer and top maker. Once the wool has reached its pre-spinning stage in form of wool top, it is then sold to the spinner who creates yarn to sell it on to the weaver or knitter to make fabrics. These fabrics are then sold on to manufacturing companies including brands and retailers to create products out of the wool materials. So you see, during this journey, wool will typically change ownership quite often which makes it harder to track.

Blending of wool

At each step of the supply chain wool can get blended with other types of wool from a different farm and origin. This is necessary to meet certain quantity and quality requirements and also price points. While the blending of wool as such is a good practice and requires a lot of expertise, it makes traceability more difficult. Especially as blending is often a company’s expertise and therefore a well-kept secret which makes traceability challenging.

Traceability is possible with Fuhrmann

Just because things are done in a certain way, does not mean that we cannot challenge the status quo. At Fuhrmann we understand the need for traceability and have set up our business in such a way that we can easily offer our clients traceability right back to the farm.

We buy directly on farm

Fuhrmann is based in the heart of Patagonia where wonderful wool is grown by thousands of dedicated Argentinian wool growers and their sheep. Because we are here at the source we have built up direct relationships with wool growers across Patagonia from whom we purchase the wool. If you wanted to, we could tell you the name of our wool growers who made sure you get your high-quality wool.

We manage our own farms

While buying wool directly from the farms is already a benefit for ensuring traceability for our clients, we wanted to take things even further by managing our own organic wool farms. This is why today we manage a total of 13 farms with more than 1 million hectares and over 200.000 sheep (and growing). Managing our own farms gives us even more control of how things are done, providing an even higher guarantee to our clients.

Sent directly to the mill

Once we buy the wool or shear our own wool, we pick it up and drive it directly to our wool scouring and combing plant in Trelew. Here we process the wool in accordance to the GOTS standard and get it ready for export. Over the entire process, we can tell you where your wool is, where it came from and where it is going next.

We have a network of partners

While we can control everything that happens on our home turf in Patagonia, we rely on our network of partners across the globe to take good care of your wool. We have good relationships with well-known spinners who are also GOTS certified. We also belong to the G Schneider Group, an international wool and specialty fibre merchant and processor. We can rely on the structure of the Group to ensure you full traceability and access to the best spinners, weavers and knitters your product deserves.

While we do our best every day to fulfil the requirements of our retail and brand customers, we are also constantly looking to challenge ourselves and see how we can improve even further. That is where you come in. We welcome open and trustworthy relationships with our clients who tell us what they need to create the products consumers want. If there is something we don’t do yet, talk to us and we will make it happen together.